Postscript, Purdue

It was in my seventh-grade Spanish class that I first heard the concept of the rope-a-dope.

My teacher, Mr. Ramirez, was an eccentric fellow. Anybody who knew him wouldn’t be surprised that he introduced a bunch of 13-year-olds to Muhammad Ali. He made me cry in the first week of school because I forgot my homework, but by the end of the year I loved him. We all did.

(Yeah, I cried in class during my first week of junior high. It explains a lot.)